Strategic focus areas

We will concentrate our proactive efforts on four strategic focus areas:

Reconciliation: Embody human rights by engaging in sustained trusting relationships with Indigenous communities that are built on dignity and respect, and by working to advance reconciliation and substantive equality.

Poverty: Advance the field of human rights law by making clear how systemic discrimination causes and sustains poverty, and addressing poverty within a human rights framework.

Education: Promote and strengthen a human rights culture in Ontario that encompasses both rights and responsibilities, with a special focus on educating children and youth and addressing systemic discrimination in our education system.

We believe that having an impact in these substantive areas of focus requires that we recognize and reinforce our foundational strengths.

Over the coming five years, the OHRC will focus on building and improving capacity in the following five areas.

Leadership voice – We will be a leadership voice on human rights. We will communicate in a clear and timely way. We will retain capacity to respond strategically to critical and emerging issues across all Code grounds and social areas.

Our people – We value our people. We will strengthen our organizational culture to foster collaboration, support the achievement of goals, and embody human rights best practices.

Our relationships – We will build and sustain strategic relationships with a broad range of individuals, groups, organizations and institutions, with a particular focus on regular community engagement and collaboration with the Human Rights Legal Support Centre and Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.

Evidence-informed approaches – We will monitor and assess human rights in Ontario using qualitative and quantitative data, and information from international and regional human rights bodies. We will evaluate the effectiveness and impact of our work.

Embody human rights through reconciliation

The OHRC will embody human rights by engaging in and sustaining trusting relationships with First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities and groups. These relationships will be built on dignity and respect, and on working to advance reconciliation and substantive equality. We will contribute to nation-wide efforts that recognize the enduring impact of colonialism on Indigenous peoples. We will work in collaboration to support Indigenous communities as they determine and advance their own human rights goals and priorities.

We believe a commitment to reconciliation and the vital process of healing, empowerment and self-governance for Indigenous peoples is of utmost importance and a priority for our collective future.

The OHRC has an important role to play in building a vision of human rights that reconciles with Indigenous cultures, laws, treaties, and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and in addressing critical human rights issues affecting Indigenous communities.

Over the coming five years, we will establish and strengthen our relationships with Indigenous communities and groups; recognize colonialism, and address systemic racism, discrimination and inequality.

We will work towards the following results:

Sustainable and trusting relationships with First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities in urban and rural areas throughout Ontario

Greater understanding of the impact of colonialism on Indigenous peoples

A human rights paradigm for Ontario that reconciles Ontario’s human rights system with Indigenous frameworks, concepts, processes, and laws

Accountability for systemic racism and discrimination against Indigenous peoples.

We will do this by:

Building our internal capacity to be a credible, trustworthy and knowledgeable agent to advance reconciliation and equality

Recognizing and reflecting the historical and enduring ways that colonialism continues to affect Indigenous peoples and communities and continues to shape our institutions and systems

Enhancing our knowledge and understanding of current issues and needs affecting Indigenous peoples and communities

Engaging our Commissioners and senior leaders in dialogue with Indigenous leaders and communities to form sustainable and trusting relationships with First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities in urban and rural areas throughout Ontario, while acknowledging their status as nations

Deepening our analysis and understanding of human rights through reconciliation with Indigenous cultures, laws, concepts of collective community rights and responsibilities, treaties, and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Engaging in collaboration with Indigenous communities and groups to respond to and address systemic racism, discrimination and inequality

Leveraging the opportunities presented through government commitments to reconciliation.

Enforce human rights in the criminal justice system

The OHRC will enforce human rights and reduce systemic discrimination and inequality experienced by people who are among the most marginalized in our communities by seeking human rights accountability in the criminal justice system.

Within Ontario’s human rights framework, the OHRC has unique powers to effect systemic change. Over the coming five years, we will engage the full range of our functions and powers to address human rights issues within the systems that powerfully affect communities’ experiences of marginalization. We will pursue a particular focus on Ontario’s criminal justice system (including pipelines to criminalization, police, courts, corrections and community release).

Recognizing the significant over-representation and marginalization experienced by Indigenous peoples within these systems, this priority intersects with and will inform our priority to advance reconciliation with and equality for Indigenous communities. This priority equally recognizes and respects the community’s deep concern and urgent call for action to address systemic anti-Black racism, Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism, and to acknowledge the disproportionate harm that criminalization has on people with disabilities.

It will also allow us to address discrimination and inequality faced by many groups, including sexual violence survivors, community members of diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and gender expressions, and immigrants, migrants, refugees and other people with insecure status within these systems.

We will work towards the following results:

Strong and transparent human rights accountability systems within the criminal justice system, which ensure that human rights obligations are put into practice

Non-discriminatory practices in policing, including ending racial profiling in all police practices

Non-discriminatory practices in corrections, including ending the use of solitary confinement (administrative segregation) in provincial jails

Human rights competence identified as an essential requirement and measure of competence for people who work throughout the criminal justice system.

We will do this by:

Leveraging current government-led initiatives related to the criminal justice system to make sure that systemic discrimination is acknowledged and addressed

Engaging strategically with efforts currently underway to address racial profiling in policing

Using our promotion and education functions to make sure that the legal profession and judiciary are able to identify and challenge systemic discrimination

Using our public inquiry functions strategically to highlight the lived experience of people who come into contact with these systems

Activating our powers to intervene and initiate applications before the HRTO, courts and other tribunals to further transparency and accountability

Monitoring, enforcing and reporting on compliance with human rights obligations and policies in these systems

Advance human rights by addressing poverty

Since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948, the right to an adequate standard of living, including food, clothing and housing, has been recognized as a fundamental human right. While the Code specifically prohibits discrimination on the ground of “receipt of public assistance” in housing, it is important to uncover and understand the ways that poverty and systemic discrimination are intertwined in all social areas covered by the Code. The OHRC will advance the field of human rights law by making clear how systemic discrimination causes and sustains poverty and social conditions such as homelessness and hunger. We will also make clear how systemic discrimination disproportionately affects people experiencing poverty.

Poverty and systemic discrimination are inter-connected. Poverty exacerbates marginalization and undermines peoples’ ability to redress discrimination. Poverty undermines human rights security in all social areas including housing, access to health care and other social services, access to employment, and experiences of deeply precarious employment.

Code-protected communities disproportionately experience poverty, with particular dynamics of marginalization facing persons living with disabilities, Indigenous peoples, women, older persons, children and youth, transgender people and racialized communities. The OHRC will shed light on the connection between poverty, homelessness, hunger and systemic discrimination to promote human rights and substantive equality.

We will work towards the following results:

Recognition of the connection between human rights under the Code and economic and social rights protected in international law

Explicit protection under the Code from discrimination for people who experience poverty, hunger and homelessness

Ensuring that proposed strategies to address poverty are responsive to human rights concerns.

We will do this by:

Bringing to light the lived reality of people who experience poverty, homelessness and hunger, and fostering public conversation that explores the links between poverty and systemic discrimination. Exposing to the public and human rights “duty holders” how poverty further entrenches marginalization and vulnerability

Using our expertise in policy research and development to deepen policy, legal analysis and understanding of human rights by making connections between Ontario’s human rights framework and international human rights conventions and treaties, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Using our expertise in policy research and development to deepen analysis and understanding of ways that seemingly neutral systems intersect to create, amplify and accelerate dynamics of systemic discrimination, economic marginalization and social exclusion

Bringing a human rights lens to government and community strategies aimed at addressing poverty, homelessness and hunger.

Promote a human rights culture through education

The OHRC will promote and strengthen a human rights culture in Ontario that encompasses human rights entitlements and responsibilities, with a special focus on educating children and youth and addressing systemic discrimination in the education system.

Recent events in Canada and around the world have raised serious concern and fear about growing racism, Islamophobia, homophobia and general xenophobia. Over the coming five years, the OHRC will address these challenges head on by fostering a culture across the province that puts human rights at its core. We will do this by focusing on the education of children and youth.

We want to create an environment where all children can reach their full potential. We will approach this by working to ensure that children and youth are educated about their human rights and responsibilities. We will strive to eliminate systemic discrimination that children and youth face in education systems so that, in this formative system, they have a lived experience where human rights are respected in practice.

We will work towards the following results:

Human rights are a regular part of children's and youth’s education, including in the curriculum

Human rights competence is identified as an essential requirement and measure of competence for people who work throughout the education system

Children, youth, caregivers and educators feel empowered and able to stand up for human rights without fear of reprisal

People who take part in Ontario’s education system show greater understanding of human rights and responsibilities

Discrimination is socially unacceptable.

We will do this by:

Taking steps to have human rights integrated as an essential aspect of Ontario’s education system

Conducting targeted public education with children and youth about human rights and responsibilities and the human rights system

Providing opportunities for children and youth to exercise leadership on human rights issues

Strategically engaging with and leveraging social media communications

Identifying and addressing the systemic discrimination children and youth face in education.